


The Sky After the Calm

by orphan_account



Series: what causes a storm [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 20:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10726587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: An indefinite but presumably long time after the events of "Rainbow of Rivers".Tsukishima wonders what his life is, to work with the forces of the universe (actually, two particularly nosy best friends) to ensure two natural phenomenons make ends meet.





	The Sky After the Calm

**Author's Note:**

> I was feeling a little down, going through my old WIPs. I found this small baby, and decided why not?

“Why do you always touch your bandages?”

Bokuto looks at his hand pressed over the square patch on his arm. He hadn’t even noticed he was doing it until Tsukishima had pointed it out.

_ “Imagine it’s my hand that’s healing your itchy wounds, Bokuto-san.” _

“I don’t know,” Bokuto replies, “It’s a habit.”

Tsukishima glances over from the top of his computer. “Habits usually start because they remind you of someone,” he says, ever the random fact teller.

Bokuto never thought of it like that. Actually, he has thought about it, several times when he found himself alone or accidentally watering the houseplants that didn’t belong to him. He never thought about it deeply, afraid something might come from it and change something he couldn’t reverse back to how it was before.

“Tsukki, do you think I could break this habit?” Bokuto asks.

Tsukishima pauses in his typing. “You can,” he says, “but it might trick you to do an even worse habit. You look like the type to pick at your scabs.”

He’s spot on. Sometimes, Bokuto wishes Tsukishima weren’t as acute as he demonstrates time and time again when Bokuto doesn’t know he needs it.

“You’re such an uncute kid,” Bokuto says, leaning across the desk and pinching his cheek. “What happened to that teenager who used to blush whenever I hugged you lots and told you how much I love your smiles?”

“You hugged me against my will and according to Kuroo-san, they were smirks,” Tsukishima retorts, unfettered by Bokuto’s nostalgia. “I do not smile to smile.”

“Aw, so uncute.” Bokuto releases his cheek to rest his head on his hands. “You’re right, though. I was a scab-picker until I was taught a different way to deal with it.”

“Why would you want to break it, anyway? You learned for the better.”

Bokuto grins and caresses the bandage like an old memory.

“Maybe I like the pain?”

Tsukishima sends him a look of disbelief.

“You’re a masochist.”

Bokuto bursts out into laughter and spins in his rolling chair.

“You’re probably right, Tsukki! I love pain! It keeps me alive!”

Tsukishima glances around in hopes no one outside the office is looking in on them and wondering what the two weirdos are doing confessing their undying, secret love for BDSM.

Bokuto settles to a stop and presses his face in his hands, elbows on his knees as he moans in woe.

“Ah, I miss him! I miss pain! I love happiness, I love everything in the world!” Bokuto exclaims. Surprisingly, no one pops their head in to check if they’re okay. They must know by the volume that Bokuto is feeling particularly honest that day.

“Miss who?” Tsukishima asks in polite courtesy for their ongoing conversation. He has learned throughout the years that multitasking, especially with a hyperactive and distracting boss, is the best solution to get anything done.

“I long, Tsukki! I  _ desire!  _ I want the sun to come back but what can I do if it’s gone for good?” Bokuto jabs a finger in his face.

“Nothing, because the earth will have already exploded along with the destruction of the sun?” Tsukishima tentatively suggests.

Bokuto crosses his arms together into an X. “Wrong! The answer is to make fire. Tsukki, I thought you were smarter than this.”

“I am, but you didn’t tell me the sun was gone  _ temporarily,”  _ Tsukishima deigns to defend himself against the fraying logic Bokuto tends to parade around when he’s avoiding something.

Tsukishima stops on that thought. Bokuto  _ is  _ avoiding something.

“The sun is gone,” Bokuto is saying, waving his arms around dramatically. “He’ll never come back because he’s tired and wants to sleep. What can we do when the thing that’s been with us every step of the way says ‘Sorry, I can’t do this anymore’ and goes away? That’s like a mother saying she wants to retire and go on a vacation after taking care of her child into adulthood. It’s piety, Tsukki.”

“I’m surprised you know what that means, Bokuto-san,” Tsukishima says.

“I’m your boss, I’m supposed to know things!”

Tsukishima refuses to reply to that in fear he may contradict himself and get struck by lightning.

Instead, he tells Bokuto to go do his work or else he won’t eat lunch with him later. Bokuto laughs out of the room, saying  _ “cute, uncute”  _ like a mantra.

Tsukishima leans back in his chair, idly counting the stucco marks on the ceiling. He shuts his eyes once spots appear, sighing. Indefinitely, Kuroo’s text two months ago appears like a ghost to the front of his mind.

_ “Bokuto’s lost. Anchor him at work so he doesn’t disappear.” _

He clicks his tongue. It’s easier said than done, but Kuroo has always had a confidence in Tsukishima that he could take care of himself and others if he put in the effort. He hates how Kuroo is always right, even though most of the stuff that spews out of his mouth is taken out of his ass.

In times like these, Tsukishima has no choice but to turn to  _ that  _ guy for help.

He unlocks his phone and dials the number he has on speed dial.

“Hello. This is Kei. Can we meet up at the cafe you recommended last time?” Tsukishima can’t help the fondness when he hears the familiar chirp on the other end of the line. “Sure. I’ll see you then.”

He puts away his phone at the knock on the door. His secretary voices that his next appointment has arrived; he looks at the progress on his screen and figures he can work on the rest early tomorrow before Bokuto clocked in.

He tells them he’ll be there right away, but not before warning to lock the office after he leaves; Bokuto had a tendency to fall asleep on his nice leather couch when he was out. 

They nodded in agreement, but Tsukishima knew the truth. They had no power to stop Bokuto if he ordered for Tsukishima’s office to be opened. They both knew if Bokuto wanted something, he always received it.

Tsukishima sighs for the tenth time that day.

Friends were so hard to maintain.

However, it’s why he loves them, a voice long gone from this world reminds.

He hides the shaking of his hands in his pocket as he makes his way to the conference room to meet his client. If Tsukishima looks particularly glass-eyed when he enters the room, no one mentions it.

All throughout the meeting, he finds his mind wandering. He pushes down the ache in his chest at the thought of his two best friends who filled each other’s cracks so completely they made a whole. Tsukishima developed admiration and envy of what they had.

_ He’s my sun,  _ Bokuto once said years ago.

His lips quirk at the memory. He remembers the disappointment, hearing that, since Tsukishima couldn’t shine as brightly as Akaashi had.

Eventually, he figured for some that the light of the moon was enough.

xXx

Yamaguchi Tadashi has only grown ever cooler throughout the years, not because Tsukishima has bias or anything. Yamaguchi truly was, and always has been, true to himself and does what he wants. For a long time, all he wanted was to be by Tsukishima’s side. The summer Tsukishima met Bokuto, Tsukishima linked how similar the two were: unnecessarily loud, totally brazen, zealously dedicated, and stupidly honest. He apparently had a soft spot for their brand of crazy.

The person before Tsukishima oozed out maturity and experience. He had taken to wearing glasses part-time (“Not that I want to copy you, Tsukki!”), and his clothes were stylish yet casual so no one could tell his true age (“I really only buy what looks nice, though?”). There was a tattoo on his collarbone, peaking out from the white button up he wore. The pink petals teased at the sakura tree Yamaguchi had gotten when he was 19, saying the movement of the petals reminded him of the pinch serve he had worked to perfection in high school. The tree sprouted from the middle of his back to branch outward, reaching out for more skin to paint over. Tsukishima was breathless the first time he saw.

“Did I ever tell you that you’re cool? Because you are. Dammit, Yamaguchi.” Tsukishima had hated to admit it, but his best friend was a natural.

“Sorry, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi had chimed habitually.

Communication had never been a problem between them, so Tsukishima starts with the reason they were there once they get seated.

“I don’t personally know Bokuto-san, but he sounds awfully a lot like someone I know,” Yamaguchi says after Tsukishima finishes explaining Bokuto’s situation.

“Really?” If Yamaguchi knew someone that was a replica of Bokuto, Tsukishima should have met them by now.

“Yep. You’ve met him, too.”

It was like Yamaguchi read his mind. The ability of his showed up at the most (in)opportune times.

“Why mention him now?” Tsukishima asks.

Yamaguchi shrugs, eyes wide and expression oddly innocent as he sips at his milk tea. “They sound like they could be good friends.”

It’s exactly why he gives Tsukishima a number, and how Tsukishima receives a direct line to the infamous Oikawa Tooru himself.

“Tadashi gave you my number? Then, I guess you’re okay.” His voice is vaguely snooty and makes Tsukishima want to choke him. Only he is allowed to be condescending and sarcastic for no reason.

“What did you need, Tsukki-chan?” Oikawa asks.

“For one, don’t call me that,” Tsukishima says automatically. “Just Kei is fine.”

“Kei-chan,” Oikawa amends.

It’s one step better than the double nickname. “Sure.”

“So?” Oikawa says after a lengthy pause. “Why did Tadashi feel the need to introduce me to his bestest best friend in the whole wide world?”

Gosh, this guy was irritating. “It’s not me he wanted to introduce, it’s my coworker,” Tsukishima says, reigning in on the urge to punctuate his sentence with ‘you asshole’.

“A blind date?” Oikawa interprets through some fantasy filter that annoyances like Kuroo had to one ear whenever Tsukishima spoke. “I’ll have to pass. I’m a sought after individual after all, so they could be a fan. I don’t date fans.”

At least he’s honest, if not horribly modest. “My friend’s going through a slump right now after his boyfriend—” What was a good way to phrase this? “—left him. Yamaguchi said you two might hit off since you’re both volleyball maniacs.”

“A volleyball player you say?” Oikawa perks with interest, which he obviously hadn’t conveyed earlier. Tsukishima doesn’t know how he can tell. “Show me.”

“I’ll send a picture to you.” Tsukishima finds a good shot of Bokuto when they were at the beach a few summers back. It was a candid photo taken from the side, Bokuto laughing at something someone said, his line of vision taken up by a person standing above him and off to the side out of view of the camera. He knows who it is, since he was there to take it. There’s only one person who could make Bokuto look like the world was in the palm of his hand.

“Wow,” Oikawa says when they reconnect. “Is this who I think it is?”

“Bokuto-san hasn’t been on the volleyball scene in a while,” Tsukishima provides helpfully.

Oikawa about squeals. “If Iwa-chan only knew I was going to go on a date with  _ the  _ Bokuto Koutarou, he’d curse me! He was such a fanboy, you know, since we’re the same age and all. How is he? You said he was in a slump. Does he need a setter?”

“I would hate to let your expectations down,” Hint, hint, sarcasm, “but he has been white collar long enough for me to be calling him boss.” Before Oikawa can make protest, Tsukishima continues, “He still plays regularly at the gym.”

“Okay, it’s settled! Give me the time and place, and I’ll be there.”

“Are you sure? You don’t even know him, Oikawa-san.”

There’s zero hesitation in the former setter’s voice when he speaks, low and filled with intent.

“How could I pass up the rare opportunity to set to one of the best spikers in my generation? Bragging rights are on the line, Kei-chan.”

“I wonder,” Tsukishima says.

“You sound doubtful,” Oikawa points out.

“Well.” The memory of Bokuto snoring in a futon wearing holey sweats, drool all over the pillow, and his face stuck in a stupid expression with his mouth wide open comes to mind. “You’ll see when you meet him.”

“See _ what?”  _ Oikawa asks.

“More.”

“More?”

_ “More,” _ Tsukishima repeats adamantly.

There was no other way to describe the feeling of meeting Bokuto Koutarou for the first time.

xXx

Tsukishima pops his head into Bokuto’s office. The person in question is nose deep in paperwork. He can barely spot the rebellious tufts of slicked back gray hair from over his monitor.

“Bokuto-san, you’ll be meeting an acquaintance of mine at your regular gym. Does Friday at six work?”

Bokuto nods, mumbling and typing and approving forms like the mindless office zombie he becomes during crunch. Tsukishima thinks he barely registered his question, and leaves with a shake of his head.

He looks to Bokuto’s personal secretary. “Pencil in the time so he doesn’t forget,” he says, to which they nod dutifully.

Tsukishima enters his office relieved, plopping into his chair with a weight lifted from his shoulders. He turns on his phone and sends two quick texts, one to Oikawa and the other to Kuroo.

They both receive the same, succinct message.

_ [It’s done.] _

One receives it with excitement in his veins. The other sends a confused,  _ “??????”,  _ in response along with several messages in rapid succession wondering if Tsukishima had finally resorted to assassination as an outlet for his pent up sexual frustration.

Tsukishima studiously ignores the latter. Whatever happens next is out of his hands, and if someone happens to get hurt...he’ll be there for Bokuto. Knowing Yamaguchi, he would take care of things on his end, too. 

Thinking about  _ ends  _ and  _ bad outcomes  _ is bound to be a cause of disaster, so Tsukishima focuses on completing his work and filtering out the buzzing coming from his desk drawer.

Tsukishima is oblivious to the fact he would soon become the harbinger of the worst (best) combination of friendship, both persons who have no means of understanding the terms “limit” and “self-care” in their gorilla dictionaries.

His brother, somewhere out there, would definitely laughing.


End file.
